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©Richard Anderson
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“It’s hard to overstate the
genius of the Marx Brothers,” says Center Stage Artistic Director Kwame
Kwei-Armah during rehearsals for Animal
Crackers. “This is high-flying, laugh-a-minute lunacy at its best, and I
can’t wait to see families and kids of all ages come together to enjoy this
remarkable musical comedy.”
He was right on the money. This one is a doozey that induces eye-tearing
laughter from soup to nuts. Opening its
51st season, Center Stage brought to its Pearlstone theater stage
the old Marx Brothers-led madcap musical comedy Animal Crackers. The seemingly timeless production with music
and lyrics by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby and a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie
Ryskind opened in 1928 towards the end of the vaudevillian era. When sound pictures were gaining popularity,
it was filmed as a movie in 1930.
